Chapter 646: Transcending the Dao-attaining Emperor, Glimpsing the Immortal Dao Domain!

Luo Fu also had the intention of correcting Duan De.

Under Qin Yao’s hopeful gaze, Luo Fu nodded directly and said, “No time to waste—let’s go now.”

Qin Yao’s face lit up at once, hastening to say, “Master Luo, I’m certain the Young Lady will not disappoint Itachi.”

The moment she finished speaking, Luo Fu immediately retracted the Nine Heavens Treasure Tree, preparing to accompany Qin Yao to the demonic clans.

Duan De watched the two of them, as if they were about to abandon him, and grew anxious at once.

After all, to get Luo Fu to agree to go to the demonic clans, Duan De had already laid on the table his greatest haul from this broker job.

Is feathered azure gold so easy to obtain?

That’s an immortal material even a Great Emperor would covet.

And yet?

Luo Fu got his feathered azure gold, and now he’s turning his back on me, the middleman? What about my losses?

“Wait,” Duan De called out hastily. After clearing his throat, he said, “Old Luo, I think Itachi shouldn’t rush. Itachi know, the Dao is not lightly transmitted.”

Qin Yao shot him a hostile glance and said, “Master Duan, what are Itachi planning? Don’t forget, the Young Lady gave Itachi plenty for helping introduce Master Luo.”

Qin Yao certainly hadn’t forgotten how Luo Fu had swindled the feathered azure gold from Duan De just moments ago.

But she also knew clearly that feathered azure gold was merely the most valuable thing Yan Ruyu had offered to persuade Duan De.

Beyond that, the demonic clans had given Duan De many other treasures—thousands of jin of divine source alone.

All Duan De had to do was guide them; from start to finish, it was she who convinced Luo Fu.

Duan De saw nothing wrong with his actions.

He spoke confidently: “Exactly! But if Master Luo is to preach the Dao to your demonic clans, shouldn’t Itachi offer something in return? Even Amitabha Buddha collected plenty of offerings when he taught the Dharma. Why should your demonic clans expect to beg for the Dao with nothing but empty words?”

Qin Yao gritted her teeth in fury and snapped, “Then what exactly do Itachi want, Master Duan?”

“What kind of talk is that? What do Itachi mean ‘what do I want’?” Duan De feigned grievance, shouting loudly, “What does this have to do with me? Itachi’re the ones seeking the Dao from Master Luo—Itachi should ask Master Luo himself!”

He shifted his tone and turned to Luo Fu: “Master Luo, Itachi—”

“Stop,” Luo Fu cut him off. “Itachi’re not trying to make me hand over a nine-colored immortal gold, are Itachi?”

Seeing Luo Fu’s half-smiling expression, Duan De’s heart tightened instantly.

He knew full well how utterly insane Luo Fu was. Back when they’d barely met—even though he didn’t understand Luo Fu’s thought process at all—he’d nearly been tricked into becoming one of the Fourteen Great Bandits.

Later, during his cooperation with Luo Fu as part of the Demon-Dao duo, Duan De had truly felt the endless, unpredictable tricks Luo Fu employed.

Duan De could demand favors from the demonic clans, but he had no guts to take anything from Luo Fu.

Swindling the demonic clans was fine—he didn’t care about offending a fallen clan—but Luo Fu was different. This man’s vengeance was as fierce as madness.

“How could I?” Duan De quickly denied it. “Er… I feel that since I acted as a broker, I must see this through to the end. How about I accompany Itachi both to the demonic clans?”

Qin Yao gave Duan De a look of contempt but said nothing. For her, the urgent priority was getting Luo Fu to meet Yan Ruyu.

As for this greedy fat man—now that they had Luo Fu, what use was he?

“Duan De, this world holds many secrets. Aren’t Itachi afraid that the more Itachi know, the faster Itachi’ll die?” Luo Fu said with deep implication.

Right now, Duan De’s mind was entirely focused on how to compensate for losing a piece of feathered azure gold.

Moreover, deep down, he didn’t truly believe the demonic clans held any secrets he couldn’t know—after all, this man dared to plunder the tombs of Great Emperors.

The secrets of Dao-attaining Emperors were the greatest taboo in this universe.

Who dares to dig up a Great Emperor’s tomb? What wouldn’t Duan De do?

Under Duan De’s feigned ignorance, Luo Fu simply ignored him and set off with Qin Yao, dragging Duan De along toward the demonic clans.

In a small world of the demonic clans.

Yan Ruyu continuously consumed divine source to sustain the consciousness of her ancestor, the Green Emperor.

The Green Emperor’s primordial spirit had retreated into the Ruined Tower. What level of magic treasure was that? How could the now-declined demonic clans even dream of possessing it?

Although Luo Fu’s information had revealed to Yan Ruyu that the Green Emperor still lived, sadly, the demonic clans’ current resources were utterly incapable of locating the Ruined Tower or contacting the Green Emperor’s primordial spirit within.

Yet thanks to her bloodline, Yan Ruyu, as a direct descendant of the Green Emperor, had barely managed to awaken his primordial spirit remotely, exchanged a distant dialogue with him, and sustained his consciousness at the cost of consuming divine source.

The Green Emperor had long since abandoned his physical body. After retreating into the Ruined Tower, his plan to evolve a new immortal realm had failed, and his self-awareness had begun to flicker, slipping repeatedly into a state of disconnection.

Upon learning of Luo Fu’s uniqueness, the Green Emperor, in some mysterious way, felt a sudden surge of intuition: Luo Fu carried the chance for him to transcend the Dao-attaining Great Emperor realm and glimpse the immortal Dao domain.

Thus, the Green Emperor had no choice but to find a way to keep his consciousness awake for extended periods and maintain contact with his descendant Yan Ruyu.

During the brief time Duan De and Qin Yao had spent seeking Luo Fu, the demonic clans had nearly exhausted their entire stockpile of source.

Sustaining the awareness of a Dao-attaining Great Emperor—especially remotely, through the Ruined Tower—was no simple task.

Just as the demonic clans’ source reserves were nearly depleted and Yan Ruyu was frantic, a ripple of spatial distortion appeared—and Yan Ruyu finally exhaled in relief.

Qin Yao had not disappointed her. At the very moment the demonic clans could no longer sustain the ancestor’s consciousness, she had finally brought Luo Fu.

Upon appearing, Luo Fu immediately sensed a powerful yet dull, even decaying consciousness, sustaining its clarity at the cost of consuming source.

It was a primordial spirit, utterly weakened, yet radiating an undeniable, overwhelming strength.

The moment Luo Fu appeared, the primordial spirit reacted as if discovering something miraculous, its awareness surging violently.

Abandoning his physical body, retreating his primordial spirit into the Ruined Tower, seeking to evolve a new immortal realm within it.

One must admit, this was indeed a grand concept.

Ever since the Void Emperor severed eternity and transformed his “seed of the body” into the Concealing Heaven Method, all Concealing Heaven cultivators had relentlessly pursued immortality and transcendence.

This pursuit had spanned the entire End Dharma Era.

Throughout this time, countless Dao-attaining masters had proposed bizarre methods for achieving transcendence or immortality—only to overturn them again and again. After endless trial and error, the only path universally accepted in the Concealing Heaven universe was this: enter the legendary, unfathomable immortal realm.

Cultivators aiming for transcendence were countless; even the paths to the immortal realm had been gradually explored by successive Dao-attaining masters.

But no one had imagined that the immortal path had been sealed off countless eons ago. The immortal realm they dreamed of—where they would complete their final transformation and become immortal—had ceased to exist long ago.

Today’s Dao-attaining masters, unaware of this truth, all pinned their hopes on the immortal path.

As for evolving an immortal realm, others had considered it before—but to create an immortal realm from nothing while still unenlightened? That was a paradox.

Only the Green Emperor, due to his original nature, was the most promising among all Dao-attaining masters.

Unfortunately, Wan Qing chose the right path and possessed the right ability—but he deliberately abandoned his true advantage, extinguishing his own hope. After his primordial spirit entered the Ruined Tower, ten thousand years passed, and even his self-awareness frequently slipped into unconsciousness.

This time, he could remain awake so long only thanks to Yan Ruyu and the demonic clans’ reckless consumption of source.

Now, seeing Luo Fu appear—even though he had no body, even though his primordial spirit depended on the demonic clans’ source to remain conscious—Wan Qing recognized Luo Fu at once.

He had truly walked a path unlike the Concealing Heaven Method.

In countless ages, no one within the Concealing Heaven system had ever achieved immortality. As Dao-attaining Emperors, many had suspected whether the Concealing Heaven Method itself was flawed—perhaps even a dead end, its ceiling locked at the Dao-attaining Emperor realm.

Yet no matter how much they doubted, creating an entirely new system was an impossibly difficult task.

Even in the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands era, the Void Emperor had spent immense effort to create the “seed of the body.” More crucially, he could only do so after mastering the Perfect Method to an extreme degree.

In the End Dharma Era, due to flaws in the Heavenly Dao, even Dao-attaining Emperors were capped at a lifespan of ten thousand years.

But in the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands era, Dao-attaining Sovereigns lived for hundreds of thousands, even millions of years.

The Zizhi and Wuxing of End Dharma Era Dao-attaining masters were certainly no inferior to those of the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands era—but the times had changed. Even with the greatest talent, the short lifespan of ten thousand years, combined with the End Dharma Era’s constraints, left them no time to forge a new system.

Compared to forging a new path outside the Concealing Heaven Method, the difficulty was far greater than simply breaking through to the immortal path and entering the immortal realm.

The immortal realm might be even more broken than the Concealing Heaven universe, but it was still the immortal realm. Even a rotten boat had three pounds of nails; at the very least, crossing the immortal path allowed one to absorb scarce immortal matter to achieve immortality.

Like Ji Zi Yue, Ye Hei’s future bride—she had accidentally entered the immortal realm before Ye Hei’s first life.

And when Ye Hei, after enduring nine lifetimes in the mortal world, finally walked the arduous path of the Crimson Dust Immortal…

Even though time flowed differently between the immortal realm and the Concealing Heaven universe…

When Ye Hei arrived in the immortal realm, Ji Zi Yue’s child was still alive—proving that, even if Ji Zi Yue had not achieved the same breakthrough as Wushui Emperor by absorbing faint immortal matter, she had still lived far longer than any normal Concealing Heaven cultivator.

Without that, she could never have waited to reunite with Ye Hei.

Immortal matter was unattainable to other Concealing Heaven cultivators.

But for Wan Qing, whose original body was an Immortal Immortal Herb, this limitation did not exist.

True, even Immortal Immortal Herbs had lifespan limits—they could not grow eternally.

Once reaching their limit, they would undergo rebirth and regeneration, like nirvana and reincarnation.

This very trait was the greatest obstacle for orthodox cultivators walking the Crimson Dust Immortal path.

Wan Qing, the Green Emperor, had indeed cultivated from an Immortal Immortal Herb into a Dao-attaining Emperor. Theoretically, he too had a lifespan limit—but don’t forget: any Emperor who obtained an Immortal Immortal Herb could use its power to be reborn once.

Leveraging the Immortal Immortal Herb’s unique nature and his own original body, with Wan Qing’s fortune, talent, and insight, comprehending the Crimson Dust Immortal path was perfectly natural.

Why would he need to anxiously await this junior?

In a fleeting glance, Luo Fu instantly recognized Wan Qing’s identity. He bowed slightly to the faint, ethereal primordial spirit: “Human Luo Fu, pays respects to the Green Emperor.”

In the instant their gazes met, Luo Fu instantly recognized Wan Qing’s identity. He bowed slightly to the faintly illusory Primordial Spirit figure and said, “Human Luo Fu, pays respects to the Green Emperor.”

Wan Qing did not cling to his identity as a Dao-attaining Emperor; in his view, though he had once been a Great Emperor, on the path of cultivation, calling Luo Fu “friend” was already taking advantage.

After all, Luo Fu had truly walked a path long abandoned by predecessors.

Creating a system independent of the Concealing Heaven Method—this path had been abandoned by countless predecessors.

Establishing a system independent of the Covering Heaven Method had long been abandoned by countless predecessors among Covering Heaven Method cultivators.

(End of chapter)